The laws of Malaysia require that (most) apartment blocks are run by a microcosmic Commonwealth-parliament.
- Parcel owners ("proprioters") must vote to elect officials, named the Committee.
- The Committee is unpaid by default, but has the rights to pay itself responsibly.
- The Committee functions as a board that has partial control over a mostly un-taxed Management Corporation ("mCorp").
- The mCorp encapsulates the constituency's collective bank account and operations.
- The constituents need only a 25% minority to call for the removal or appointment of Committee members - implying an extremely volatile environment due to the low energetic barrier to the deactivation of any ongoing Committee. This is balanced by the cost of executing such a call, which is expensive in terms of cash, so any foolishly violent mCorp will, by definition, quickly make itself poorer.
- Committee members come from all quadrants of the Hammerstein-Equord matrix / HEm, and the usual consequence apply
- Freeloaders will shirk as much as possible bearing the liability of being on an unpaid Committee, as long as someone else is willing to do the work. Freeloaders are furthermore segmented into those who are merely lazy, those who are actively profit seeking (malicious), and those who are simply ignorant of the fact that anyone is doing work at all - in my view, the simplified triumvirate of non-compliance.
- Malicious freeloaders may encompass extroverted activists, which assert continuous pressure on the credibility of the Committee via picketing (often in digital media).
- Other activists may be well-meaning, yet unfortunately, from the dismal quadrant of the HEm.
- Yet other activists may be both, honest and true in their intentions, and intelligent in their actions.
From time to time, various factors may cause a mCorp to lose money. This is typically not an issue until the mCorp starts to completely burn out its cash, and resultingly face the need to borrow money, or to seek higher government intervention. But who is to blame under such circumstances? First, activists, of both the malicious and the good varieties, will increasingly urge for increased management activity to increase the profitability and cashflow of the operation.
However, in situations where structural factors are responsible for low profit or cash, the main lever for increasing incomes is simply to raise the Maintenance Fund Charges ("taxes"), which requires a 51% vote from any proprietors who bother to turn up an Extraordinary General Meeting ("EGM"), which must in turn be called by a resolution of either (25% of proprietors) OR the Committee.
Rarely do proprietors initiate an EGM to raise taxes. An unpaid Committee on the other hand, has very little incentive to do anything else. Faced with the responsibility to guide the course of an mCorp on the path to failure, either the unpaid Committee contributes more work at the expense of its individual members, or it simply (and legitimately) shifts responsibility from itself, to the entire constituency. Should the constituency vote at an EGM to not increase taxes, whereas no mitigating efforts are made to avoid ruin, the Committee will assert that it did everything within its power to steer the constituency, and the direct democratic action of the constituency finally screwed itself.
A constituency which votes not to increase taxes, may of course take the mitigating action of replacing the Committee with another Committee that wishes to contribute more (or better) work towards the avoidance of ruin through means other than raising taxes.
Pattern 2 : a tale of Fiscal Faith
In an effort to retain profitability, activists and the Committee may assert that labour must increase, in order to improve intelligence in the allocation of resources. Such initiatives may be framed as "distrusting" of unchecked resource allocation. Some of these assertions may reach heated proportions - at which point their complementary group may become prominent. Activists who are extraordinarily "trusting" of unchecked resource allocation, may become philanthropists - moving to personally subsidise the collective, from their own pockets.
Anecdotally ... I recently encountered a question of process, regarding proposed technology procurement. Then, I actually got an offer from a proprietor who wanted to sponsor (donate) items which were contentious. It was very interesting to observe the different preferences here. A freeloading proprietor quickly thanked the philanthropist, for helping the collective.
Being on the Committee, my first inclination was to refuse, as it was not the owner's problem, but the mCorp's bill to pay. The owner was adamant that they wanted to contribute more money than the other owners. So then I said, we should be strategic in where we spend a donation. Rather than at the bottom of the labour pyramid, could it be spent in a way that increases time at the decision making level, where we are extremely short?
I was sure there would be all kinds of comments about this. We recently had an activist program calling for the procurement of certain widgets to increase the rate of revenue generation. Could the donation buy four widgets? Eight? I was not personally interested in widgets - but the donation would make a lot of widget activists happy, wouldn't it? I returned to query the sponsor ... it was an interesting question of utilitarianism.
"What do you think," I asked, "if the angerboys say WIDGETWIDGET ... would you donate to widgets?" And the sponsor answered that they wanted me to decide instead. So I asked what is your ultimate intention? Is it to make me happy? To make the most number of proprietors happy? To make the technology users more productive? Or something else? The outcomes would be different, but if we targeted the sponsor's true intention, then we'd maximise their happiness from the donation. The sponsor said that they didn't really care.
"Well, I will challenge that - something's motivating you to throw money. Money is time. Time you could have spent with your partner or future kids or on hobbies instead of earning etc. Why sacrifice it ... there has to be an answer." The sponsor laughed and said they would think about it to seek an epiphany. Further prodding produced the phrase, "This is investing in the community."
"Is it? Subsiding (the freeloader)? Did you see how happy they were? That's the main segment you're pleasing - the ones who are selfish - how is that structurally benefiting the "community"?" The sponsor was insistent that others knew best, how to allocate the resources, as others had "done the research and work," and so their thought process was trusted. "I see," I said, "make a cash donation to the mCorp. I'll make sure it's publicised that someone took pity on the collective, and put it out there. But then, we don't have to adjust any processes to accommodate the unusual income." The sponsor agreed, saying they imagined it would be as if we found cash while walking on the road.
Pattern 3 : the True Cost of Leadership
We were in an email thread discussing the need for "proper" procurement processes. I pointed out that there were existing processes, which were very simple, and we could first comply with those. I ended my explicitly important comments there, and then shared the following thoughts.
- - considerations for when folks have time to think about economics - -
In the current state, the processes are actually not wholly defined. So while I agree in theory, in practice we have to wait a bit for processes to be first defined, before being complied with.
In the future there may be more detailed algorithms - I saw another comment it could have been from someone in this group, but I forgot whom, suggesting the entire Committee should review expenditure as low as \$ 110. I commented simply that was not the current SOP. Then I reflected on the idea to see if it made sense ... and then I got stuck trying to figure out the value of the time spent by Committee members on weekly work. Is it valued at the day-job-rate of each member individually?
For example if some of us are paid \$ 1,100/month in our day jobs, the hourly rate comes down to about \$ 5, so any extra hour of work becomes ... hey, if a Committee member has to [decide something over an hour], but the member has more important work on the Committee, then the mCorp should pay someone else up to \$ 5 to [make the decision over an hour]? I don't know, that seems like the ballpark calculation. If the Committee's total hourly rate is say \$ 43 ... then we'd definitely need to up the budget for a property manager.
If Committee members have very little time - maybe the mCorp needs to find Committee members with more time, or it has to find a bigger budget.
